The Frog and the Ox

02. THE FROG AND THE OX. As a splendid Ox - who, by right of the great family he belonged to, was permitted to disport himself as he pleased in the fashionable parks of London - was taking his afternoon stroll, an envious, tawdry-coated little Frog, that stood gaping at him hard-by, called out to certain of his fellows (who had hopped thither in his company all the way from the Fleet Ditch in the City), to take particular notice of the enormous size of the first-mentioned animal.
"And see," he said, "if I don't make the biggest swell of the two."
So he puffed himself up, once, twice, and again, and went still swelling on in important emulation, till in the end - spite of the cautions of his brother frogs - he burst himself.Moral. The humble citizen who strives, by mere inflation, to make as great an outward appearance as his substantial neighbour, must inevitably go to pieces. [more info]